I think the new government should be doing something about this..............

Just imagine.... how many "government offices" have photocopiers.... and how many of those "offices" are you on a database there?

also , imagine the insurance companies, and other companies, have your personal details on record, when they have asked, YOU to send them a photocopy of "your birth certificate..... marriage certificate... driving licence.... etc... Where did you copy it? in the local shop? local library? schools office?

What the government can do, about already re-cycled machines, I don`t know,..... but think they should make it compulsory for ANY office, to remove the hdd from the machine, and putting a big hammer to it, before incinerating it.... then giving a certificate to prove it has been done.... (or proof that a competent company has wiped the drive electronically)

to remove the hdd from the machine, and putting a big hammer to it, before incinerating it....

I'm sure this has been discussed (on the "other" side) before at great length. When it was shown that its all but impossible to destroy the data on an HD disc. whatever you do to them, there is a method somewhere to recover most if not all of the recorded data, the platter(s) doesn't even need to be in one piece or playable on a rotating spindle. I think it was left that probably the best attempt would be to drop (unseen by prying eyes) them heavily weighted over the side of a ship into deep ocean, even they they would be vulnerable to data recovery when the oceans eventually boil dry.

Quite who would want or need to go to the lengths of recovering data is not usually discussed. But I suppose if your data is that sensitive, someone, somewhere will want to get at it. Other than that, just sit around on a train, someone will simply leave it behind eventually.

Just on a positive note. We recently had a hard drive fail on our Ricoh copier. The engineer requested a member of staff be present when he replaced the faulty unit and then handed it over for us to dispose of as we saw fit. All very sensibly handled

Yes, But.... I think the news report was showing warehouses full of machines that had been sold on/scrapped, by the user, and not the supplier.... so the onus should be on the manufacturer to put in place the "destroy all data" facility, on all their machines, so that the user could (and by law, should) activate it on releasing the machine onto the seconhand user market....

(the cost suggested of $500 would be reduced due to the minimum, by virtue of the fact that it is part of the manufacturing costs, and therefore the purchase price would not be increased by the same amount...)

Warehouse operators, buying these machines, should also be made to check that this has been done, before releasing them for re-sale...